Page 22 of Emma on Fire

Emma blinks. “Am I?”

“Faintly,” the therapist clarifies, adjusting her smile to mirror Emma’s.

“Weird. I don’t know why.” Emma digs her nails into the palms of her hands. The sharp tiny pain distracts her a little from the agony of her arm, and she’s pretty sure it takes care of the smiling issue too.

Lori steeples her long fingers together underneath her chin. “I hear that you’ve been making some disturbing claims.”

Emma decides to play a little dumb. “About climate change? They’re notclaims—they’re true. And you should be disturbed. You should be terrified. Everyone should.”

“I’m talking about burning yourself.” Lori says this in an even tone.

Emma has to admit that there’s no judgment in it. The woman is good at her job.

“Oh. That.” God, what she’d give to fold her arms stubbornly across her chest! She should’ve burned the back of her hand, or something more out of the way.

“Do you want to talk about that?” Lori asks.

“Not really.”

The therapist is quiet for what feels like five entire minutes. It’s embarrassing, and Emma starts to squirm in her creaky chair. She’s not sure if it’s a trick to get her to fill thesilence by suddenly opening up about her feelings, or if the idea of a student setting themselves on fire is just not all that interesting to the therapist.

“You must be hurting so badly,” Lori finally says.

Emma deliberately misunderstands the statement. “Yeah. Burns suck. Don’t get one if you can avoid it.”

“That’s not the hurt I’m talking about, and I think you know it.”

Fine, she does. But it’s not like she thinks this lady’s going to be able to help. Back when she had friends, a few of them visited Lori, and they walked away gushing about how the woman had helped them get in touch with their feelings, access their inner self, and find a better path. Emma doesn’t need any of that—she knows exactly how she feels, it’s her outer self she’s counting on to make her point, and the path she’s walking has a termination point that is only getting closer.

“I remember when you came to Ridgemont as a ninth grader,” Lori says. “You seemed so happy. You excelled in all your classes. You made JV soccer and the varsity tennis team, and you wrote an opinion column for the newspaper. You practically took the school by storm. But yourmotherhad just died. And nobody would’ve known it! You never seemed to need any help at all.”

Notseemingto need it is a lot different than not needing it, Emma considers pointing out. But she’s guessing that’sexactly what the therapist is getting at. Emma hides her feelings, Emma isn’t in touch with her inner self.

“And you continued to excel,” Lori goes on, “until recently.”

Emma nods. “Sounds about right.”

“Your sister’s death changed everything, didn’t it?”

Emma picks at her sleeve, aware that Lori isn’t using the word, much like Hastings. She doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to think about how she was able to shoulder the loss of her mother because her sister was there for her, their shared grief making the weight seem less of a burden. The girls had been raised to succeed, and that meant getting out of bed, moving forward with life, and pretending like everything was going to be all right. They were strong, they were responsible, they were the Blake girls. But when Claire opted out of staying alive, being a Blake seemed so much harder.

“There are things that could make things a little easier for you,” Lori finally says. “Medications, for example—”

“Kids at Ridgemont eat pharmaceuticals like M&Ms,” Emma interrupts. “I’m not interested.” She doesn’t add her father’s belief—that medication means admitting you can’t handle life, that you crumble under the stress of just being a human.

Lori nods. “I hear your anger,” she says.

Emma rolls her eyes. “Okay, whatever.”

“Sometimes anger feels easier than sadness.” She looks at Emma’s arm. “And physical pain can feel better than emotional pain.”

“Trust me,” Emma says bitterly, “noneof it feels good.”

Lori reaches out and touches Emma’s hand, just for an instant. “I’m listening.”

Emma looks away when her eyes start filling with tears. It’s a simple statement, but she can’t remember the last time anyone actually told her they were listening to what she had to say.

Hastings shut down her article in the student newspaper.

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